Cape Town conference AfricArena partners VivaTech

AfricArena, the Cape Town-based tech conference set for November, has announced a partnership with Paris-based equivalent Viva Tech that will see the two events collaborate to connect and support entrepreneurs.

The two events are set to launch a joint innovation challenge aimed at innovation focused on the African continent.

“The prize is sponsored by French President Macron’s Presidential Council for Africa, and consists of providing the winning startup with support through a network to access capital, or funding, and market access particularly in France,” said AfricArena founder Christophe Viarnaud.

Winners of the challenge will pitch at AfricArena, which will be held on November 15-16 in Cape Town. Disrupt Africa reported last month the event, which will be held in partnership with Wesgro and Silicon Cape, was hosting a “World Tour” in May to select startups to pitch at the event.

The AfricArena team have been visiting six of the fastest growing African tech cities – Mauritius, Reunion Island, Nairobi, Casablanca, Lagos and Dakar. In-country ‘pitch battles’ have been held, with winners getting the chance to pitch at the main event.

One such pitch competition was held at VivaTech last week, won by Cedric Atangana, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of universal payments platform WeCashUp.

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Passionate about the vibrant tech startups scene in Africa, Tom can usually be found sniffing out the continent's most exciting new companies and entrepreneurs, funding rounds and any other developments within the growing ecosystem.